


Room for Mistakes

by starbolin



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-27
Updated: 2013-09-27
Packaged: 2017-12-27 18:44:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbolin/pseuds/starbolin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Okay, I don’t want to be an asshole, but I’m really not ready for a family,” Stiles said.</p><p>“I’m giving it to Derek.”</p><p>Stiles blinked. “I hope you know more than one Derek.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Room for Mistakes

The first thing Cora said when Stiles picked up was, “So, hey, you remember New Year’s.”

“Uh.” Stiles tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder so he could turn on the faucet and lather his hands. “Not a whole lot from after the vodka shots, but if you’re referring to the part where this really awesome and beautiful girl--”

“Whoever told you you’re smooth is a lying asshole,” she interjected.

Shutting off the water, Stiles assured her, “Absolutely nobody has ever told me I’m smooth.”

“Well, anyway, I’m just gonna cut to the chase. Apparently I spent the last seven weeks baking your baby batter.”

After a long pause, Stiles said blankly, “Oh.”

“I’m already booked for an abortion, but I thought I’d let you know so you could change out your condoms.”

“Um,” Stiles said. “Thanks. And I’m sorry, I guess?”

“It’s cool. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Yeah, you too,” Stiles said, and after she hung up, he stood there with wet hands for a solid couple of minutes before his brain resumed semi-normal function.

.

Two weeks later, she called him again and said, “Changed my mind. I’m finishing the semester and then taking a year off to spawn.”

“Okay, I don’t want to be an asshole, but I’m really not ready for a family,” Stiles said.

“I’m giving it to Derek.”

Stiles blinked. “I hope you know more than one Derek.”

“Fuck you.”

“What the hell is he gonna do with a baby?”

“You’re a moron." He could pretty much hear her eye roll. “He’s been going nuts over this. If we could surgically transfer the fetus into his body, he’d be on the table in a nanosecond.”

“Gross. He said that?”

“Doesn't have to. I can read him like a book, and the book is called ‘Big Bad Baby Lunatic.’”

“Jesus.” Stiles shook his head. “I’m sorry, I really can’t picture that at all.” His laptop screen dimmed from lack of use, and he saved his biochem paper, then swiveled the chair away to look out the window instead. Two girls were running through the rain, bags held over their heads, laughing. "Is it, um, gonna be a werewolf?"

"Probably, yeah."

"Cool," Stiles said.

.

Summer break was two parts running around Beacon Hills with Scott in fits of nostalgic delinquency, and one part hanging out on the Hale sofa watching Cora get bigger. It took him awhile to notice, but whenever he went over, Derek just sort of ghosted.

“I think he’s giving us time alone,” Cora said when he mentioned it. She was dragging her spoon around an empty bowl of pistachio ice cream, making shapes in the remnants.

“Why?”

Shrugging, Cora reached over into his lap and took his bowl for herself, replacing it with her sock feet. “Who understands his ways?”

She came over a few times to have dinner with Stiles and Dad. It wasn’t comfortable, exactly, but after the embarrassing Stiles-as-a-baby stories started coming out, it stopped feeling like an oncoming disaster and started feeling like something else.

.

A week into his fall classes, he woke up from a vivid dream and called her, knowing she was probably up watching HBO, but only got as far as, “Do you want me to come up there when you go into--” before she interrupted, “I’d probably rip your arms off,” so that was the end of that.

.

“Who the fuck names a baby Marlowe,” Stiles demanded.

“Derek’s a nerd.”

Stiles switched the phone to his other shoulder so he could dump his laptop bag on the bed. “And you’re letting him? I’m lodging a protest. This is abusive parenting.”

“Don’t be an asshole. He says you should choose the middle name, if you want to.”

“Oh,” Stiles said.

.

Marlowe Claudia Hale was born on October 13th at 2:28 AM. At 2:43 AM, Stiles received a text from Derek with a rundown of the stats, followed shortly by a snapshot of a hideous gremlin. 

He forwarded the picture to everyone.

.

“Hi,” Derek said when Stiles knocked.

“Um, hey.” Stiles couldn’t see a baby anywhere, but Cora was lying on the couch in what he was pretty sure were Derek’s sweat pants. She wasn’t the size of a pregnant person any more, but she still looked kind of bloaty and defeated.

“You and your demon penis are not welcome in this house,” she said. “Do you have any idea what my life is like right now?”

Stiles held up a grocery bag. “I brought tequila and Doritos.”

“Get the fuck in here.”

Not long after that, Stiles heard a thin wail from Derek’s bedroom, and a minute later, Derek came out holding a little heap against the bulk of his chest. Stiles wasn’t sure where to look when Cora got her boobs out, so he went into the kitchen and made a couple of sandwiches. Cora wolfed down half of hers and then set the rest on the baby’s back and left it there until Derek swiped it.

Despite the noise from the movie, the baby fell asleep mid-suck. She didn’t wake up even when Cora belly-laughed, bouncing her little body up and down. Stiles couldn’t figure out whether or not he wanted to hold her, so he didn’t ask.

“Tell your dad Merry Christmas and Derek will bring his socket wrench back tomorrow,” Cora said when he left.

.

“Morning,” Stiles croaked. He felt like someone had sandpapered the inside of his soul. Cora was nowhere in evidence, probably still sleeping it off. Hell, she was probably still faded, or whatever it was called when you sat on the roof with your babydaddy smoking mysterious werewolf weed until the sky started turning blue at the Eastern edge.

Derek glanced up at Stiles’s hair and smirked, then went back to loading things into a backpack. “You’re technically correct.”

“That’s the best kind.” Stiles gave Marlowe a little wave. She didn’t notice, busy watching Derek from her swing while chewing on the side of her hand. “I’m on spring break. If it’s before noon, it’s morning.”

“Coffee’s by the stove. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen. Waffles are in the freezer if you want some.” Derek pulled a fat stack of diapers out of the backpack and put them back inside a different way round, then crammed a rolled-up towel on top and zipped up.

“What’re you guys up to?”

Shrugging into the baby sling with the ease of practice, Derek said, “Going out to the creek. The water’s great for swimming this time of year.”

“You’re -- you take her _swimming?_ ” 

“She likes it.” Derek grabbed a napkin and crouched beside the swing. Pulling Marlowe’s hand out of her mouth, he started to wipe it down. “She can go like ten feet.”

“What the fuck, Derek!” Stiles’s voice rose. “She’s a _baby!_ ”

“I don’t toss her in and catch up on my text messages,” Derek snapped back, standing and launching the balled-up napkin into the garbage. “My hands are there the whole time.”

“That’s still totally insane!” Marlowe made an unhappy sound in response to his volume, and Stiles grimaced, shot her an apologetic look, mouthing, _sorry, buddy._

Derek was frozen in place, face turned away. In a quiet, awful voice, he said, “I’m not unsafe with her.”

“I didn't mean that,” Stiles said. “I'm sorry. Shit.”

“I understand.” Derek sounded zero percent like his real self, and Stiles placed the tone easily, because it was _hello, officer, what can I do for you today?_ “It’s your right to raise concerns as her--”

“Stop that,” Stiles cut him off, feeling sick. “Just shut the fuck -- she’s yours. Okay? Yeah, maybe I’m a little more invested than I thought I’d be, but I’m not -- you have to know I wouldn’t ever.”

Derek still didn’t look at him. 

“I think she’s lucky,” Stiles said, heart hammering in his chest. “I think she’s really lucky to have you as a father. And Cora would bury my mutilated body in a tarp if I fucked with you guys.”

Derek’s shoulders came down slightly. After a moment, he lifted Marlowe into the sling, arranged her legs while she grabbed at his stubbled jaw and the frayed neckline of his t-shirt. Looking up at Stiles, he said, “Do you want to come?”

Stiles pushed a hand through the mess of his hair and looked at them, the ordinary way they fit together. “Yeah," he said. "You know what, let me just get my shoes.”


End file.
